


bleeding hearts still pound

by haipollai



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Captivity, Force sensitive tree, M/M, Physical Abuse, Rescue, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5629270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe stumbles to his feet, almost too quick and his vision goes fuzzy. He presses a hand to a wall to hold himself up until his vision clears. “Let me out!” He yells, pushing himself to the door, slamming his hand against the blank metal. It leaves a faint smear of blood.</p><p>Nothing else changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bleeding hearts still pound

Poe groans as he comes to. His head is throbbing and lying there he's not sure he wants to know why. It sinks in he's not in a bed, the ground underneath him is cold metal. “Shit,” he mumbles. He pushes himself up slowly, pausing when his head spins. It’s a slow process but he gets himself into a seated position, leaning against a wall that looked the same as the floor he’d been drooling on. 

He’s in a cell, he can tell that straight away. Four blank walls and a door with no handle on his side. The seam is too tight for him to even consider trying to wedge the door open.

He turns his focus onto himself. He’s in his flight suit, but the vest and his supply belt is gone. He reaches up to touch his head and when he pulls it back he finds blood on his fingers. “Shit,” he repeats.

He’s not a hundred percent sure who has him, because they weren’t fighting First Order though that doesn’t mean they dropped in and took him before he noticed. It’s more likely to just be some idiotic misunderstanding with the settlers on the backwoods planet they were reconning to confirm it has resources the Resistance needs. 

Poe stumbles to his feet, almost too quick and his vision goes fuzzy. He presses a hand to a wall to hold himself up until his vision clears. “Let me out!” He yells, pushing himself to the door, slamming his hand against the blank metal. It leaves a faint smear of blood.

Nothing else changes.

“Hey! Who the fuck is out there?” He tries again, kicking at the door. “Anybody!” He breaks into a coughing fit, his throat too dry to continue yelling. His head throbs so he lets himself sink back down to the floor, sliding himself over until he’s against a wall away from the door. Just in case.

There’s nothing to differentiate time and he knows he’ll go stir crazy in here before he could even die of dehydration. One of his few memories of his mother is in her lap aboard a small shuttle, visiting someone.though he can’t remember who. She was pointing out stars and telling him about everything he could see out here, and he would learn patience to see it all one day.

Poe isn’t completely sure if she actually said that, or he’s putting words from one of his later instructors into her mouth. He had to learn how to spend hours with nothing to do while transporting cargo or heading to a target site. 

He doesn’t close his eyes, just in case. He focuses on his breathing, and on something deeper. Back home, the strange figment of home that isn’t much more than a feeling these days, there was a tree he grew up playing around. Poe has never been force sensitive but he goes back to that tree in his head.

HIs breathing slows down, the throbbing doesn’t matter anymore. He’s back at the tree, like a dream. So like a dream, he’s with others who were never there. Finn stands there, a hand on the trunk, watching Poe.  
All superimposed over the opposite metal wall.

“You okay?” Finn asks, like he would if this was real. Poe smiles at him.

“Gonna be,” he whispers. He’s going to get out of this, he always gets out. He blinks and Finn becomes General Organa and then his former commander and the new kid who stumbled into base a few weeks ago, too bright eyed for glory.

The door opens. Three men come inside and one puts a boot in his gut. Before he’s finished coughing, another is grabbing his hair, yanking him forward onto his stomach and slams his head against the floor. His vision goes black for a second and he blinks furiously to clear out spots. Blood is coming down from his forehead now, streaking over his eye and making him blind anyway. His head is yanked back up so he’s staring at the third guy.

“You’re Resistance,” the man says.

“What gave it away?” Poe gasps, it’s hard to get his breath with his head yanked back.

“You came with others.”

“Nah, I-”

He’s cut off with a hard backhand that splits his lip. “What do you think we can sell you for?”

“Shit,” he spits.

The man talking to him laughs and makes a gesture. Someone stomps hard on his back. He’d yell in pain but he can’t get enough air in his lungs. “I don’t think that’s true.” He pats Poe on the cheek and stands. “Get his image so we can prepare the broadcast.”

“Sir,” one of the grunts says. They each get a hold of Poe under his arms and yank him up. He tries to get his feet under him but the pin him against the wall. The blood is quickly wiped away and something flashes in front of his eyes before they simply let him drop again.

“We will see you shortly.”

And Poe is left alone in even worse shape. He slumps over onto his side, not sure if he has any ribs broken so just stays there. He can’t slip back to where he was before though, his head hurts to much and there’s blood in his eyes again. He has to hold on though, his fight isn’t done yet. He keeps himself conscious and that feels like winning a battle in itself.

It’s one he can’t win though. Time twists around him sluggishly. He jerks, realizing he must have drifted off. Moving carefully, he gets himself up into a seated position.  
Death is always a possibility, he flies into danger all the time. He fights the bad guys all the time and they don’t hold their punches. This feels like an awful way to die, locked up in some cell for _barter_.

The blood keeps trickling down from his head and he very carefully feels for the inside pocket he stashes some extra gauze and a snackbar for emergencies, but there’s nothing there. He wipes weakly at the blood for some short relief.

He realizes in the entire time he’s been there, they haven’t left any food or water. If they plan on keeping him alive, they’ll have to feed him. Maybe if it’s not one of the goons he can weasel his way out.

Poe knows it won’t happen, he knows he’s barely capable of standing right now, but the hope feels good.

Food comes while he’s passed out again. Something jerks him awake again and when he opens his eyes, there’s a glass of water and bowl of something by the door. He spares a moment to wonder if it’s poisoned before deciding it’s worth the risk. If he’s going to die, he’d rather it not be as slow as starvation.

The water feels good on his tongue, he has to make himself stop and ration it, just in case it’s awhile before anyone bothers again. The bowl contains some kind of gruel or porridge. It’s tasteless but he eats it quickly, scooping it up with his hands. He hadn’t even realized he was hungry through the pain until he starts eating. When the gruel is gone, he takes one more sip of water to wash it down with and goes back to his spot on the wall.

It’s a little easier to focus his breathing again, and try once more to go back to the place where he was calm. Back to the tree that thrummed with the force. It’s harder to keep his focus though, everything aches, and there’s still blood on his face.

The door opens again and he makes his eyes lift up to see the same two goons. “Anyone else even live here besides you two?” He says as they haul him up to his feet. They don’t respond, just drag him out of the cell and down what feels like an endless bland metal hallway until they finally reach another room. This one has chairs around a table and he’s dumped into one.

“You are going to send a message to your friends,” the same man who questioned him earlier.

“Nah.”

One of the goons punches him in the stomach, hard enough he definitely feels something crack. He stays bent over the chair, just trying to breathe. “You will. Or you die.”

“Thought you were after some kind of pay day,” he says through gritted teeth.  
“Sacrifices have to be made,” the man says brusquely.

Poe suddenly gets it. They’re here. They’re close and the barter deal suddenly turned into a ransom. If he can only stall for time, maybe they’ll reach him in time. “What do you want me to say?”

“Simple enough. They stop or you die.”

“They won’t stop.”

“For your sake. They better.” He grins darkly. “Now.” He does something on the table in front of him and what must be a recording device comes up from the table. “Begin.”

Poe spares the thing a glance then looks back at the man. “Prove to me they’re alive.”

He’s angry and not hiding it as well as he thinks he is. Poe grabs onto that like a lifeline. The guy’s control isn’t unbreakable and he wonders again why only the three of them. “Just record the message.”

“No.”

His hand is grabbed and one of his fingers broken like a twig. He yells at the pain.

“We are recording this so-” The lights die. One of the goons thinks to grab him, getting him in a chokehold as the other frees a weapon to aim at the door.

“Get out, sir,” one of the goons speaks up for the first time. Everything seems to happen at once and Poe can’t keep track. The door opens without a sound but no one is on the other side. Someone opened the lock from afar. Then the firing starts and Poe can’t do anything but squeeze his eyes shut against the flashes before it makes him throw up. He’s going to die here, if not from these guys holding him then friendly fire. 

At least it will be a better death than locked up in some cell. He’s dropped to the floor and the pain is so jarring for a second he thinks he really has been shot but then everything finally seems quiet except for the voices.

“Poe? Poe!” Someone is yelling and he forces his eyes open. Finn is above him, looking incredibly worried.

“Fuck if you’re another dream.”

He’s scooped up and he can’t help but yell again. Finn is saying something but he can’t hear it over the pounding in his ears, but the low vibration of his voice echoes through Poe’s body. 

-

Poe comes to in what’s definitely an infirmary, he can tell from the sharp antiseptic smell before he even opens his eyes. There’s no sound but the hum of machines backed up by the vibration of the engines. The lights have been dimmed when he opens his eyes.

It all feels vaguely like a bad dream except for the cast on his finger and the faint ache in his chest but it’s all so far away. He calms his breathing, and there are leaves around him, being blown about by a breeze. He’s a little boy looking down at the ground which seems so far away. Finn is looking up at him from below, his lips moving and Poe knows he’s telling him that Poe will be okay, even if he falls.

“Poe? What was that? It didn’t sound like Standard. Are you okay? I can get the doctor they’re right here.”

He blinks, realizing Finn is truly there but looking down at him. “How long?” His voice comes out gritty and rough from the pain.

“They had you for three days. Some insane militants or something. Got them taken care of, no big deal we should have had you-” 

“Shut up.”

“Poe-”

He waves his wrist weakly. “Shhh.”

Finn huffs and takes his hand. Poe smiles, feeling that same hum he remembers from the tree when he was a kid in Finn’s touch. “You’ll be okay, Poe. I promise.”

“You don’t have to promise that.”

He kisses Poe’s knuckles. “Yes I do. I’m gonna make sure it happens.”

Poe sighs and squeezes Finn’s hand as best he can. He doesn’t know how things ended up like this, with someone so intense and full of heart at his side but Finn planted himself there and Poe missed having someone to lean on like that. “You gotta kiss me, make it a deal.”

“Oh yea?” Finn laughs softly and kisses his cheek. “Like that?”

“I’m going to…” He’s cut off with a yawn from whatever pain medications are in his system. “Who taught you to be a tease? That’s not very stormtrooper-y.”

Finn kisses him on the lips, letting it linger softly before pulling back. “You have no idea what I learned growing up.”

“Yea, you learned how to catch people.” Poe lets himself drift off but he doesn’t let go of Finn or maybe Finn isn’t letting go of him.

-

He’ll have a new scar on his forehead, and his chest will be bruised for awhile yet but he’s alive and back in his own rooms on base. Finn is in his bed, stretched out and watching him. “Thanks for finding me,” Poe says, watching him through his reflection in the mirror.

“I always will,” Finn says solemnly.

 

It makes Poe smile. “I know.” He goes over to the bed to join him. His touch makes Poe's skin hum and he wonders if he should say anything, does Finn know there’s a strength inside him or maybe General Organa but he would never go that far without Finn’s permission. 

“Rey sent a message. Saying she might be ready to come home soon. Looking for a pilot to go pick her up.” 

“Hm, easy courier job? Hoping to a strange new world to pick up a wayward Jedi? Guess I can be talked into being your pilot.” He kisses Finn, sighing happily as Finn pulls him over to be on top of him. “We can stop over on Yavin. I think there’s something there you both might like to see.”

Finn’s hand is on his back, his fingers lightly scratching at his skin “Can I ask what?”

“Nah, I’ll explain later.” He kisses Finn, harder than before, slipping his tongue over the curve of Finn’s lips. “Doctor cleared me for more strenuous activitiy.”

He groans and tightens his hold on Poe. “You should have said so!”

“Saying so now.” He bites at Poe’s earlobe. “Keep up.”

**Author's Note:**

> The force sensitive tree is mentioned in the comics, his parents planted it on Yavin 4 so seems logical he would have played on it at some point as a kid


End file.
